n never marry.
You see yourself I cannot. If you were rich, or if I were rich, why,
then----"

"If you were I would not marry you, in all probability."

"And why? Should I not be the same Molly then?" With a wan little
smile. "Well, if you were rich I would marry you gladly, because I know
your love for me is so great you would not feel my dear ones a burden.
But as it is--yes--yes--we must part."

"You can speak of it with admirable coolness," says he, rather
savagely. "After all, at the best of times your love for me was
lukewarm."

"Was it?" she says, and turns away from him hurt and offended.

"Is my love the thing of an hour," he goes on, angry with her and with
himself in that he has displeased her, "that you should talk of the
good to be derived from the sundering of our engagement? I wish to know
what it is you mean. Do you want to leave yourself free to marry a
richer man?"

"How you misjudge me?" she says, shrinking as if from a blow. "I shall
never marry. All I want to do is to leave you free to"--with a
sob--"to--choose whom you may."

"Very good. If it pleases you to think I am free, as you call it, be it
so. Our engagement is at an end. I may marry my mother's cook to-morrow
morning, if it so pleases me, without a dishonorable feeling. Is that
what you want? Are you satisfied now?"

"Yes." But she is crying bitterly as she says it.

"And do you think, my sweet," whispers he, folding her in his arms,
"that all this nonsense can take your image from my heart, or blot out
the remembrance of all your gentle ways? For my part, I doubt it. Come,
why don't you smile? You have everything your own way now; you should,
therefore, be in exuberant spirits. You may be on the lookout for an
elderly merchant prince; I for the dusky heiress of a Southern planter.
But I warn you, Molly, you shan't insist upon my marrying her, unless I
like her better than you."

"You accept the words, but not the spirit, of my proposition," she
says, sadly.

"Because it is a spiritless proposition altogether, without grace or
meaning. Come, now, don't martyr yourself any more. I am free, and you
are free, and we can go on loving each other all the same. It isn't
half a bad arrangement, and so soothing to the conscience! I always had
a remorseful feeling that I was keeping you from wedding with a duke,
or a city magnate, or an archbishop. In the meantime I suppose I may be
allowed to visit your Highness (in anticipation) dail